There’s certainly nothing funny about the consequences of a lockout/tagout failure or a hazardous spill. But if humor can help employees learn and use strategies to prevent a potential tragedy, go for it, Dennis suggests.
“Humor can be a double-edged sword,” he advises. “It can make you seem very personable, but you have to be careful because it can also offend.” Dennis says he’s more likely to tell a joke or humorous anecdote if he knows the group and has a sense of what they might find funny.
That speaks to the overall wisdom of knowing your audience and keeping them engaged. Find stories and anecdotes that resonate with participants. “If I’m talking to a group of welders, I relate to things they see and do every day and use the terms that are familiar to them,” says Dennis.
He doesn’t like to put people on the spot by asking specific questions. But if he can tell a participant is eager to talk, he’ll call on that person and say, “It looks like you’ve got a story about that—would you like to share it?”
The most effective and cost-efficient way to provide safety training for your workforce? Try a demo of BLR’s remarkable TrainingToday® at no cost or obligation.
The Personal Connection
Letting your personality shine through helps people engage with you and, as a result, engage with the content. Dennis notes that live training affords the opportunity to go off script by encouraging trainees to provide their own relevant stories, ideas, and viewpoints.
All this adds to the personal connection Dennis considers essential for training success.
- Mix things up. Take advantage of the fact that everyone’s got a phone in his or her pocket and can go to a relevant site or check out an app as part of the training.
- Don’t lecture your trainees to death.
- Provide opportunities to apply the lessons, for example, by requiring breakout groups to come up with solutions to real safety problems in their industry.
- Develop a curriculum that reflects various learning styles, including visual, auditory, and tactile learning.
Training’s Tenfold Return
“Training is an investment,” says Dennis. “Every dollar you put into training is going to come back tenfold because employees know how to accomplish their tasks more safely and more efficiently.”
Of course, beyond the obvious priority of keeping people from injury is the need for regulatory compliance. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is increasingly interested in ensuring that employees have been effectively trained and that the training has been documented. Dennis advises, “OSHA wants to ask employees about training, and what they say better match what you’ve written and certified. If it doesn’t, that’s a big red flag.”
Try a demo of BLR’s remarkable award-winning TrainingToday® at no cost or obligation. This includes the Workplace Safety Library. Get the details.
Ready-to-Use Safety Training Courses
Are you looking for safety training material that is engaging—and that sticks with your trainees? Could you use prewritten training content on more than 100 critical safety topics? Topics such as:
- Back Safety
- Bloodborne Pathogens
- Permit-Required Confined Spaces
- Substance Abuse in the Workplace
- Exit Routes
- Fall Protection
- Forklifts
- Hazard Communication
- Lockout/Tagout
- SDSs
- Slips and Falls
- Violence in the Workplace
Look no further than the Workplace Safety Library on BLR’s TrainingToday®.
Train for Compliance—and for Safety’s Sake
Unlike many training solutions available on the market today, TrainingToday courses are routinely reviewed and updated to reflect changes in federal regulations or best practices. Each training course is developed by BLR® lawyers, industry experts, and instructional designers who have experience across a wealth of industries, topics, and compliance areas.
Courses keep participants interested with engaging audio, built-in exercises, and key points to remember. At the completion of every course, individuals take a quiz designed to test for competency in all the course material presented. Quiz results and course completion times are automatically recorded.
Every course can be tailored with supporting and custom documents. BLR provides supporting documents for courses that include complete speaker notes and the answer key for the included quiz. As the administrator, you have the option of displaying uploaded documents and requiring review before the session begins. This is especially useful for company policies or worksite-specific information. Supporting materials can be added, edited, or removed at any time.
With only a few minutes’ setup, your company will have a complete Web-based training program with professionally developed courses, employee testing capabilities, and systematic documentation of employee training sessions and scores. And remember, BLR TrainingToday courses can be delivered at individual employee desks, in computer centers, at training kiosks, or even in a classroom.
No wonder BLR’s TrainingToday was named “Best Workforce Training Solution” by the Software Information Industry Association. It can help you launch a cost-effective and successful employee training program.
We urge you to sign up for a no-obligation demo by visiting the award-winning TrainingToday. Or, feel free to call our customer service people toll-free at 866-696-4827.